Under the Volcano

Star Review

Albert Finney delivers one of the most memorable drunken performances of all time as Geoffrey Firmin, the hopelessly alcoholic ex-British consul in Mexico, whom we follow for one destructive day in this impressive adaptation of Malcolm Lowry’s novel. It takes a special kind of actor to portray not just drunkenness, but advanced alcoholism like this. Few performers can even master walking and slurring like a drunk, let alone suggest a heart and brain that is pickled in tequila. Finney pulls this off with the skill of a ballet dancer, delivering a delicate (un)balancing act that sways between the head-wobblingly humorous and the really quite heartbreaking.

Anthony Andrews and Jacqueline Bisset are on hand to prop Finney up (literally and metaphorically). Huston gives them depth and warmth, and anyone who has spent time around someone so consistently drunk will recognise the brittle map of concern, affection and low-level amusement on their faces.

Under the Volcano stands as vintage late-period Huston, and is a must for all fans of Finney.

Julian Upton on 10th September 2008

View all 76 of Julian Upton’s reviews

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Film Description

Under the Volcano follows the final day in the life of self-destructive British consul Geoffrey Firmin (Albert Finney, in an Oscar-nominated tour de force) on the eve of World War II. Withering from alcoholism, Firmin stumbles through a small Mexican village amidst the Day of the Dead fiesta, attempting to reconnect with his estranged wife (Jacqueline Bisset) but only further alienating himself. John Huston's ambitious tackling of Malcolm Lowry's 'unadaptable' novel gave the incomparable Finney one of his grandest roles.

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DVD Extras

• Theatrical Trailer.

Film Details

Cast

Anthony Andrews, Albert Finney, Jacqueline Bisset

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